Rotary strippers in which metal blades or wires move rapidly in a rotary path so that their outer free ends can be brought into contact with the surface of a workpiece to impact against a substance thereon, such as a layer of paint, rust, or the like, and remove the substance from the surface have received fairly wide acceptance. Several arrangements of stripping blades have been proposed and, while some have been fairly well received, the breaking of blades due to fatigue failures is a consideration that must be addressed by the designer of such tools.
In a pending application of John S. Viehe, Ser. No. 281,096, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,412, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, an insert in the form of a spring clip is positioned between each blade and the housing in which the blade flexes. Each insert is provided with two arms, one of which is disposed on the trailing side of a blade and the other of which is disposed on the leading side of the blade. The arm on the trailing side of the blade is adapted to yieldingly resist the rearward movement of the blade as it flexes rearwardly when it contacts a workpiece, and the clip arm on leading side of the blade resiliently cushions the forward rebound movement of the blade. This arrangement has been somewhat successful in reducing blade breakage. However, since the assembly of one of these tools involves the positioning of many individual blades, depending upon the size and purpose of the tool, the insertion of clips in addition to the positioning of the blades results in additional assembly time. Also, the production of these clips involves costs which increase the total cost of producing a tool having such clips. In an application of John S. Viehe, Ser. No. 187,714, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,017, is disclosed a housing for spring blades, the housing having curved surfaces on both the leading and trailing sides of each slot holding each blade.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a rotary stripper having means for keeping the stresses set up in the blades during flexing within ranges that will not result in fatigue failure of the blades. Particularly it is an object of the invention to provide, in the blade-retaining housing itself, surfaces against which the blades can impact without excessive stresses being set up in the blades.
Another object is to provide a blade having a leading and a trailing arm, the leading arm being curved to provide a surface which controls the stress set up in the trailing arm when the trailing arm contacts the leading arm during its forward rebound movement.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved housing construction, and improved drive arrangements for a rotary stripper.